Wednesday, 29 September 2010

Smoke and a pancake?

This has not been reported by the BBC (as usual), but the Dutch are going to relax their smoking ban. The ban has never been popular, has been widely flouted and has been little enforced. After effective campaigning—for which Wiel Maessen deserves much credit—the country's many small bars have gained an exemption from the ban.

Owners of small pubs in the Netherlands have welcomed the lifting of a smoking ban imposed on the hospitality industry in 2008. The partial scrapping of the measure was announced on Tuesday.

The incoming rightwing government is responding to persistent complaints from one-man businesses who argued that the smoking ban was meant to guarantee staff a smoke-free working environment. Since they had no employees, their small pubs didn't need the smoking ban, the owners claimed.
The ban will remain in force, however, for pubs, restaurants and the like which are run with personnel.

Secretary Wiel Maessen of the 1250 small pubs' umbrella group KHO said "I lit an extra cigarette when I heard the news." He added that despite his satisfaction on behalf of his members, the fight would not be over until the ban was lifted for the entire sector.

Nicely spotted as usual Chris. Have you tipped off the BBC? While following your links I was reminded of the particularly amazing fact that even Sweden, the ultimate nanny state and cradle of overbearing authoritarianism cunningly labelled as social democracy, has less draconian anti-tobacco legislation than the UK.

I have recently been going over a database of newspaper articles from the early 1900's, through to the mid-1930's regarding Prohibition.

It seems that Prohibition effectively ended well before the legslation was actually repealled, due largely to the population widely flouting the law.

Initially, almost everyone complied. However, as time went on people more generally began to ignore it and it became impossible for the authorities to enforce.

I suspect that this will be the way of the smoking bans, too. People will increasingly start to ignore the rules and the authorities will gradually stop the enforcement actions, until one day it will become an irrelevancy.

How long that will take, I don't know, however the more countries that reverse course, the sooner it will happen.

A letter written in 1932 by industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., states:

"When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before."

Rather interesting how the most draconian Illiberal bans are now thriving in states that have some sort of Anglo Saxon type political background US, Australia, Canada UK ,NZ,or the Nordic states.Perhaps that states clearly that these are the nations that are slipping into subtle totalitareanism.How embarrassing.Perhaps it's also a clear illustration of the complicit nature between these governments and vested interests,rather than any ideal of personal liberty.Which seems to be held in disdain.Much the same way that they treat the electorate.

I thought prohibition ended because of the increasing death rate from poisoned alcohol.

National Affairs: PoisonMonday, Jan. 10, 1927

"Then on Jan. 1, the new Government formula for denaturing industrial ethyl alcohol went into effect. It doubles the amount of poison which manufacturers are required to use.* The old argument of whether or not the Government has the right to use poison to enforce the Prohibition law raged.

Wayne B. Wheeler, paid advocate of the Anti-Saloon League, at once found himself the villain of the story. His statements through the week fluctuated between the rabid and the sensible arguments of the Drys. Said he:

"The Government is under no obligation to furnish the people with alcohol that is drinkable when the Constitution prohibits it. The person who drinks this industrial alcohol is a deliberate suicide. . . . To root out a bad habit costs many lives and long years of effort. . . ."http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,881577,00.html

MERRY XMAS FROM UNCLE SAM POISON RUM, DECEMBER 1926 CHAPTER 45

"BY NOW, it was not only liberal Eastern wets like New York Gov. Al Smith who were calling for modification of the Volstead Act. A growing number of Republican leaders were abandoning the dry chorus: Nicholas Murray Butler, the distinguished president of Columbia University, had denounced Prohibition as evil and inhuman; even the saintly John D. Rockefellers, senior and junior, solid Baptist teetotalers both, had withdrawn funding from the Anti-Saloon League fanatics."

"On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the city, reported Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Norris, 11 more merrymakers died, and 55 were committed blind and sick and raving to hospital wards."http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2000/03/28/2000-03-28_merry_xmas_from_uncle_sam_po.html

i) will there be a ban/no ban yo-yo when different Governments are elected?

ii) what will be the response of the EU?

iii) where will it lead? What if a bar is owned by two people, or three, or if all the people who work in it have equal shares? How many of the other bars will go bust? Hopefully none, because seeing a mix of profitable smoking and none smoking bars will further the cause of a relaxation of the ban in other countries.

HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF ALCOHOL"If the medical profession is responsible for the wide-spread belief that alcoholics are of service to mankind both as food and medicine, it should not be forgotten that it is to members of the same profession the world is indebted for the correction of these errors."http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26774/26774.txt

It would have made good business sense for the new drug companies to fund these temperance movements and be rid of their traditional rivals.

"Old Bill" opened up a new field for himself. He called his bottled petroleum "Nujol" (meaning new oil) and sold it to those who had cancer and those whom he could make fear they would have it."http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/TheDrugStoryBeale.htm#What_Nujol_Started_

About Me

Writer and researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Blogging in a personal capacity.
Author of Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism (2015), The Art of Suppression (2011), The Spirit Level Delusion (2010) and Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009).

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."